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Monday, 17 February 2014

The CBI has
started fresh questioning of the cousins of former IAF Chief SP Tyagi in the Rs
3,600-crore AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter deal in light of claims by alleged
middleman Guido Haschke that he had paid money to them. Sources said that the
agency has recently questioned Sanjeev, alias Julie, Rajeev, alias Docsa, and
Sandeep in connection with the claims made by Haschke. “What I told the CBI is
that we have absolutely nothing to do with the deal and all supporting
documents have been given to the CBI,” Sanjeev Tyagi told PTI when asked to
comment on his examination.

“We are cooperating with the
CBI and went to them every time we were called,” he said. “The CAG report and
the Ministry of Defence release on the VVIP helicopter deal last year clearly
refutes the charges levelled against us by CBI,” he added. Sources said that
Haschke, who was questioned first by Defence Ministry officials and then by the
CBI, had told the probe agency that money was paid to the Tyagi brothers for
the engineering works and meeting other administrative requirements in India.

Arrested in Switzerland in
September last year and later extradited to Italy to face trial, Haschke has
denied that he had ever met the former IAF Chief or handed over any money to
him to clear the VVIP helicopter deal in favour of AgustaWestland.

A case was registered by the
CBI against former IAF Chief Tyagi and 12 others, including his cousins, for
alleged cheating, corruption and criminal conspiracy in the Rs 3,600 crore VVIP
helicopter deal in which Rs 360 crore is alleged to have been paid as
kickbacks.

The former IAF Chief has
refuted the allegations against him.

The questioning of the Tyagi
brothers became necessary after Haschke alleged that he had paid money to them
for engineering works at the IDS Chandigarh, footing rent and meeting
administrative expenses in India.

They were questioned last year
in the case and had denied any wrongdoing. The CBI has alleged in its FIR that
Haschke, through his Tunisia-based company, Gordian Services Sarl, entered into
several consultancy contracts with AgustaWestland from 2004-05 onwards and,
“almost on a back-to-back basis he also made consultancy contracts with Tyagi
brothers”.

Under the cover of these
contracts, Haschke is alleged to have sent Euro 1.26 lakh (about Rs 1.06 crore)
and Euro 2 lakh (about Rs.1.68 crore) to the Tyagi brothers.

“Besides these two
remittances, the Tyagi brothers also received some unquantified sum of money
from the middlemen (Haschke and another, Carlo Gerosa). — PTI

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2014/20140217/nation.htm#16

Army to enhance
amphibious capability of combat vehicles

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News
Service

Chandigarh,
February 16

The Army is
modifying its BMP-2 infantry combat vehicles to enhance their amphibious
capability, especially for sea-borne assault operations. The Corps of
Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME) along with the private industry has
undertaken the project, which will involve retrofitting hydrojets on either
side of the combat vehicles for propulsion in water. These jets would increase
their power and speed, overcoming the limitation of using the BMP’s tracks for
propulsion.

The BMP is a fully
amphibious combat vehicle and uses its tracks to “swim” while negotiating water
obstacles like rivers. The hydrojets will increase its amphibious speed from 7
kph to 12 kph in seas.

According to Army
officers, enhanced speed and power have impact during operations in the seas
where tides and high water levels have to be taken into account. Higher speeds
and power would give commander greater options while planning operations.

The Army has
several versions of the BMP that equip the Mechanised Infantry Regiment and the
Brigade of Guards. Some specialised versions are also in service with the
armoured corps and the engineers. Though of Russian origin, they are
manufactured in India by the ordnance factories.

There are over
1,500 BMPs in service with the Army. The Army also has a project to upgrade its
entire fleet of BMPs with better armour protection, enhanced mobility and
increased firepower.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2014/20140217/main5.htm

One of the oldest
Kashmir militants killed in Sopore firefight

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News
Service

Srinagar, February
16

In the fast
depleting ranks of home-grown militants in J&K, Mohammad Shafi Sheikh of
Sopore today became one more number in the ‘kill figure.’ But Sheikh’s addition
to the 21,000-plus dead (according to the Home Ministry’s estimate since
militancy began in the 1990s) came with grimness of a lost count of the state’s
youth: he was one of the oldest, deadliest and committed men of a lost cause.

Categorized as an
‘A plus’ commander of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen in police records, Sheikh was
today killed when he tried to escape a security cordon in Seelu village of
Sopore – around 10km from Zaloora village where he belonged, police sources
said.

The official
described the operation as a “big setback” to the militant outfit.

“He was in a house and tried
to escape through an orchard. In the exchange of fire, he was killed,” said a
police officer.

Security forces describe
Sheikh, aged around 45-50 years, as an expert bomb maker and a chief motivator
for new entrants. He was HM’s divisional commander for north Kashmir, who
operated under aliases Shafi Peer and Rashid. A pistol, several rounds of
ammunition and a grenade were recovered from him.

Sheikh was a first year
college student when he joined the militant ranks in 1995, his elder brother
Bashir Ahmad told The Tribune. He was arrested twice in 2003 and 2006, sources
said. Each time after his release, Sheikh rejoined the militants and continued
to carry out attacks against security forces.

A senior police officer said
Sheikh had joined militancy in the early 1990s and had crossed the Line of
Control in 1995 where he spent three years in HM camps handling the outfit’s
communication setup before returning in 1998. The militant was involved in
several shootings that killed at least five police and paramilitary personnel.
One of his most audacious attacks was the 2011 Sopore police station IED blast
in which a constable was killed.

An audit report
has expressed concern that army vehicles older than a year seem to be consuming
1.5 litres of fuel per kilometre.

“If these low KPL (km per
litre) limits are accepted as normal then the operational status of majority of
Army vehicles could be a matter of serious concern,” a report by the Controller
General of Defence Accounts (CGDA) said.

This and other examples of pilferage,
wastage and inefficiencies were pointed out by the 111-page report prepared by
and submitted to the defence ministry in August 2010. The report is gathering
dust now in the ministry of defence (MoD) HQ.

“It is a general common
knowledge that vehicles which are older than even five years do maintain a KPL
which is 75% to 80% of that claimed by the OEM (Original Equipment
Manufacturer). As these figures are not shared with the OEM manufacturers, this
low KPL data passes off unnoticed.”

Repeated queries by HT to the
defence ministry failed to evoke any response.

Making a case for the
worldwide practice of establishing direct linkages between fuel users in the
army and the state-owned oil companies such as IOC, HPCL and BPCL, and doing
away with military depot-based inventory systems of the British era, the report
called for a “gradual withering away of ASC (Army Service Corps) depots acting
as avoidable intermediaries as at present”.

The present practice in the
army is not to directly dispense fuel into vehicle tanks but to supply fuel to
user units through barrels and jerrycans, creating risks of diversion and
misappropriation.

A key recommendation of the
internal report is setting up an exclusive transportation command subsuming all
the logistical agencies, which “would enable the Army to save an amount of more
than Rs. 3,000 crore on an annual and recurring basis”.

In a first, the
Indian Army has deployed a special team of officers to keep tabs on China’s
growing capabilities, dig into the heart of its strategic mindset and predict
its impact on national security.

These officers,
assigned to “China cells” scattered across the northern, central and eastern
sectors where the two countries have long-simmering border disputes, have been
given the sole mandate to track every Chinese move and file reports on a daily
basis, a top officer told HT.

The teams are
monitoring not only China’s military capabilities but also critical areas such
as its international relations strategies, soft power efforts and economic
reforms, said a source.

The army looks at
the move- a brainchild of army chief General Bikram Singh – as a way of
understanding China better, amid global concerns about its strategic intent.

"It’s not
about an incursion here or a transgression there. The China cells are looking
at the big picture,” the officer said. He clarified that the army wasn’t
interfering in the domain of the ministry of external affairs, describing the
cells as the army’s “in-house think tanks.”

The cell set up at
the Kolkata-based Eastern Command is staffed by six officers, including a brigadier
(China) who heads it. The squads at the Udhampur-based Northern Command and the
Lucknow-based Central Command consist of three officers each and are headed by
colonels.

In recent months,
China has grown increasingly aggressive along the line of actual control (LAC).

This has happened
in spite of the two countries signing a new border pact, with a series of
incursions straining bilateral ties.China’s aggressive foreign policy has triggered disquiet globally, at a
time when the US is focusing on the Asia-Pacific region, seen as a counter to
China.

There have been
growing concerns about China bullying countries with whom it has territorial
disputes in the South China Sea, parts of which are claimed by Vietnam, the
Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. China also set off alarm bells last
year by unilaterally declaring control of the airspace above large parts of the
East China Sea, where it is locked in a territorial dispute with Japan.

Defence Minister A
K Antony appears to be backing the army which is unwilling to review the clean
chit it has given to five of its personnel in the alleged fake encounter in
Pathribal, a decision that has generated outrage in Jammu and Kashmir.

The army recently
announced that it was closing the case relating to the encounter in which five
civilians were killed 14 years ago in Pathribal in South Kashmir. CBI had filed
a charge sheet against four army officers, including a Brigadier, and a
subedar.

Chief Minister
Omar Abdullah, state's political parties and general public reacted sharply to
the army's decision and pressed for a reconsideration. Omar took up the matter
with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his recent visit to Jammu.

The Prime Minister
is believed to have told Antony to take a fresh look but he is said to be
against that.

Repeated e-mails
and phone calls to the Defence Ministry for a reaction, brought forth no
response.

Army headquarters,
however, said, "We have given our report to the Chief Judicial Magistrate
and now its upto them to take whatever action they think is appropriate".

The only course
for the state government now is to act through judiciary.

The Chief Minister
had recently said on the floor of the State Assembly that "in case we have
to proceed through a writ petition in the High Court, we will surely do it. We
are committed to ensuring justice to the people in these cases (Pathribal)".

In the Defence
Ministry, if A K Antony proposes, nobody can dispose. But that doesn’t seem to
be true for the Indian Army, which hasn’t carried out his orders on providing
“out-of-turn” security and family accommodation to an officer, seen to be close
to former chief General V K Singh.

The reason for the
Army disposing Antony’s proposal only seems obvious. The officer, from the
Intelligence corps, is Colonel Hunny Bakshi, who headed the Technical Services
Division (TSD).

The TSD, which was
formed during General V K Singh’s tenure to provide the Army covert operations
capability for across the border operations against anti-India terror groups in
Pakistan, has now become controversial and has been disbanded in mid 2013 after
a probe into its activities since General Bikram Singh succeeded as the Army
chief in May 2012.

After Hunny Bakshi
and his men were shunted out of the TSD in December 2012 ahead of its
disbanding, he was admitted to the Army hospital in Delhi on complaints of
mental stress. Soon after, his wife, Aparna Datta Bakshi, wrote to Defence
Minister A K Antony over alleged harassment of his senior officers.

Meanwhile, he got
posted to Bangalore as an officer in the Karnataka sub area. Now, his wife has
again written to Antony suggesting that Colonel Bakshi faced serious security
threats, as he was an intelligence officer, who worked against Pakistan-based
terror groups and that his life was in danger.

Aparna Datta
Bakshi had also sought that the officer be advised to accommodate his family
too at his current place of posting.

Acting on her
letter, Antony had in November 2013 directed the Army to look if officer can be
“provided with out of turn accommodation and security as deemed appropriate”
apart from “carry out a threat assessment” to the officer and his family
through other intelligence agencies.

Accordingly, a
signal had been sent to the Southern Command of the Indian Army and to the
Karnataka Area headquarters in this regard by the Army headquarters.

However, sources
close to Col Hunny Bakshi and his family told The Sunday Standard the Army was
“yet to follow up” that Military Intelligence (MI9) signal number 12001 issued
over three months ago based on Antony’s directions.

TSD and its
activities came under the scanner of the Army headquarters in June 2012, soon
after General V K Singh’s retirement, when it was blamed of exceeding its
expenditure limits and misusing its funds. Soon enough, information started
trickling into the media that it was the TSD that was responsible for the
alleged “bugging” in the Defence Minister's office in South Block, which was
dismissed by Antony himself.

The TSD was also
accused of acquiring off-air monitors of mobile phone conversations of the
central government top brass when General V K Singh’s age row was at its peak
in late 2011 and early 2012.

The Army
headquarters, under General Bikram Singh, ordered a Board of Officers to
looking into the activities of TSD and to recommend actions on its functioning.
The Board of Officers, headed by Director General of Military Operations Lt Gen
Vinod Bhatia, submitted its report to the government in early 2013 and the TSD
was disbanded in mid 2013.

However, in late
2013, reports again began to circulate that TSD had paid off Kashmir
politicians and an NGO that had filed a PIL in the High Court against General
Bikram Singh over an alleged fake encounter in which he was injured and
received a gallantry medal for.